


Saving Private Kitten

by Han502653



Series: A Hunter Family [3]
Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Gen, Kid Knuckle, Knov is not convinced, Knuckle had a tough life since he ran away, Morel continues to try and pretend he's not a giant sweethearted doofus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-24 20:47:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14961899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Han502653/pseuds/Han502653
Summary: Morel had no plans of taking in another student—one was enough—he also had no plans of jumping after one of his targets into a stormy sea either.The fact that the target had jumped to save a cat washed overboard—or the fact the target was small enough Morel doubted he even managed teenager just made things more complicated.





	Saving Private Kitten

It was a rather routine mission. The Tigrus gang was buying drugs from several different countries—collecting them out in international waters where nobody could see. They’d been at it for months—almost a year untouched but eventually small mistakes led to a job and that job had landed on Morel’s lap.

It had been easy to find and clean out the sellers ship before it left port –The drugs and mooks handed to the authorities before Morel took control of the ship and headed to the coordinates himself. From the information he’d managed to dig up the mastermind of this particular operations was a control freak—refused to let it out of his sight—he’d be on the Tigrus ship and from him Morel should be able to topple the entire supply line.

And he got two weeks alone at sea out of the deal—a boon if he’d ever seen one. Shoot was a good kid but sometimes it was nice to be a lone man adrift at sea.

It was storming when Morel first noticed the ship in the distance. Not ideal—a storm at sea was never ideal—but nothing Morel couldn’t handle and it would add some fun to the coming confrontation.

Pipe on his lips the sea went foggy.

 

He stayed out of sight as the boat approached and entered the fog. Instantly he was aware of six—no seven lifeforms. Five adults—a smaller form—a teenage perhaps—and some small creature—a cat probably. Nobody with Nen—this really would be easy. Not long after that he heard their voices call out only to be met with silence.

Morel just grinned from where he sat above the bridge as their calls got more nervous. His form shrouded in his smoke and hidden through Zetsu beside, unnecessary really, they never once bothered to look up.

Wind squalled as hooks were thrown and slowly people began to climb aboard. Four total— four of the adults searched the entire boat and found nothing—no people. No drugs.

Thunder roared—Morel took that chance and landed on the deck with a thud nobody heard.

It was easy enough to deal with them—the storm plus some “fog”—picking them off one by one until they were a panicked mess—two troopers to drive the boats so they wouldn’t capsized in the middle of all this—almost disappointingly easy really. Maybe he should have brought Shoot along—it would have been a good experience.

“Brat! Distract him!”

Huh—this was unexpected.

He hadn’t expected to see a kid on the ship—and not a kid as in seventeen, no—he was small and skinny enough that Morel wasn’t convinced he even counted as a teen at all.

He needed to work on his sensing through his smoke if he missed that.

Despite that— and despite the obvious terror in his eyes he’d jumped from wherever he had been hiding and placed himself firmly between him and the others. It would have more impressive if he hadn’t been shaking—though considering he was currently being used and abandoned as the other two scrambled into the only life raft, Morel couldn’t blame him.

“Move kid, you don’t want to get hurt,” Morel cautioned, raising his pipe to his lips. Hidden by his smoke two more troopers formed and he sent them after the other two who had just cut the ropes and splashed into the sea. With only four formed they would be able to handle them easily. Not paying much attention to the kid he took a good feel of his smoke—those two seemed to be the last ones—good.

“No!” To his amusement the kid flipped him off. “Fuck off or I’ll beat you up!”

Kid had spunk if nothing else. Morel wasn’t cruel enough to risk hurting the kid with Nen and bloodlust but he did take a thundering step forward with a large grin. The boy mostly held back the automatic flinch and fell into a decent if makeshift fighting position. “And how are you going to do that?”

“I’m warning you…” He tried again—his panic was growing. Morel wondered how long he’d last before he attempted to beg or flee. He was tempted to test it—to see just how much spunk the kid had when the boy’s eyes went wide. “Private!”

Morel blinked and followed his gaze just in time to watch a cat be washed overboard by a rogue wave. Before he could even think to react the boy was throwing himself after it. A moment later, cursing, Morel followed.

 

Morel called Knov – that was the plan – Get them into custody right away and fetch captains to drive the ships so Morel could follow and question them right away. It was the plan, nothing else too it.

He wasn’t worried about the kid, even if he was pretty sure he’d broken his ribs doing CPR—even if he was sure he’d breathed in far more water than was good for him.

Knov walked out of his door and took one look at the boy unconscious and wrapped in every blanket Morel had found in his—the _captain’s_ bed and gave him a look.

“Shut up,” Morel snapped. “Take him first—he nearly drowned and I had to do CPR—he needs medical treatment—I already called ahead.”

Knov nodded and leaned down to pick him up only to raise an eyebrow at the cat that hissed at him.

He glanced over at Morel who didn’t look at him him—instead paying far more attention to keeping an eye on the others than unconscious thugs really needed. After a moment he crossed his arms defensively.

“The cat stays with him.”

Knov snorted but picked the boy up—the cat curled up on his stomach unhappily and walked him through the door.

 

The boy looked even smaller wrapped upon white sheets and handcuffed to a bed. He’d been right—he had broken the kid’s ribs—and the kid’s lungs did have water in them—but the nurses seemed cautiously optimistic that he’d be alright.

He’d helped get information out of the others—he needed it to finish his job after all—and while he was at it he had asked about the kid—who he was, where he came from. Best to assure he hadn’t been kidnapped or something.

Of the mooks only one of them had been able to tell him his name—Knuckle, and the only thing they really knew about him was that he’d been around two years and owed the boss a debt. None of them even had a clue how old he was—he gotten guess as young as ten and as old as sixteen.  As for his target—he’d refused to say anything—not that it mattered, He’d found enough information in the ship to put together his suppliers and collapsed the whole thing. None of them were getting out of prison time.

Except that left what to do about the kid.

The simple answer would be to leave him to juvvie—or at least to let the courts handle it—but Morel had never been good with simple answers. He still remembered how the kid had been all but abandoned, how skinny he’d looked, the mention of a so called _debt_ he owed… the look on his face as he risked his life for a cat without a second thought.

…

The look on his face when he woke up and realized the cat was alright.

…

Knov was going to get a kick out of this wasn’t he?

 

Morel walked over and unlocked the handcuff keeping the boy locked to his bed.

The boy looked confused—and also a little terrified though he was trying to hide it. Considering where he’d come from Morel wasn’t surprised—what little he would now about Hunters—the fact they didn’t tend to be nice to gang members.

“What… what are you doing?”

“Freeing you—you’re not in police custody anymore.”

The boy stared at him. “Then… whose custody am I in?”

Smart kid. Morel sat down and grinned at him. Messy hair and thinner than he should be—cautious and trying his hardest to appear stoic, somewhat ruined by the cat purring by his ear. “That depends… you ever want to be a Hunter?”

 

The boy was gone. Morel nearly kicked himself. This kid wasn’t Shoot—he didn’t have a rosy, hero image of Hunters like most kids did—or adults in general— especially ones that seemed to be offering something too good to be true. He _had_ noticed the kid’s half-hidden terror. _Shoot_ had been less scared of him.

Morel wasn’t ignorant enough to be all that surprised. His offer had probably seemed like a trap. A trap the kid had played along with long enough to get an opening to flee. A trap in hindsight the kid had probably fallen into once before.

That more than anything kept him from telling the police. Not yet. He wanted to talk with the kid first. No reason to ruin the future of a terrified kid.

And smart kid or not—he was still a kid, a _hurt_ kid, and Morel was a Hunter. It took less than an hour to track him down.

He was surrounded by animals—mostly dogs and cats but also a rabbit and what looked like a fox as well in an alley near the outskirts of town. He was handing out food Morel recognized from his own trip into the hospital’s cafeteria.

He was smiling at them, but also looked like he was about to cry—and that terror was still brimming under the surface. Morel watched him for a long moment before turning and leaving—heading down the block to a convenient corner market.

 

“That’s it guys—that’s all I have.” Knuckle apologized as he pet whoever squirmed closest. “I’m not going to—we’re going to have to go. If Ozo doesn’t kill me one of the other ones will—and that Hunter—”

“Don’t your ribs hurt?”

Knuckle froze. Two identical hounds growled, a third all but stepped on top of the boy protectively—The rabbit and fox fled but only as far as the shelters he’d obviously built for them from miscellaneous trash. Private just purred on his lap. The other’s either scattered or crowded around him. Slowey, as if hoping he’d imagined him, he turned his head to Morel.

Morel eyed the terror in his eye and turned to sit as well, joining him in leaning against the wall. “So I was wondering if you’d thought about my offer?”

“I…I...”

“You know, I wasn’t planning to hand you over to the police if you said no.” Morel continued and Knuckle fell silent. Morel didn’t look at him, just rummaged in his plastic bag and pulled out a bag of jerky. He opened it with a pull and offered a piece to the gathered animals—most of whom were either attempting to guard the boy or whose fear wasn’t enough to abandon him entirely.

A good sign. A great sign in a Hunter.

The growling stopped. One of the dogs sniffed his hand and when he didn’t move took it carefully. A couple more approached and Morel began tossing pieces out. Soon the cats joined in and even the fox had poked his snout out.

Morel glanced at Knuckle from the corner of his eye. The boy was watching the feeding animals—still tense but some of the fear had faded.

“I wouldn’t have vouched for you if I thought you deserved to be in their custody—If you don’t want to be a Hunter I’ll make sure you get somewhere else.”

The boy was petting Private and looked more than conflicted. To trust him? Or perhaps if he wanted to be a Hunter?

“You know, there are a lot of different kinds of Hunters—” Morel continued, tossing a piece of jerky to the fox’s shelter. He snatched it up in a flash.  “I’m a Deep Sea Hunter—but my student, he’s training to become a Beast Hunter.”

“…Beast Hunter?”

Morel hummed under his smile. That got his attention. “Yes, his focus seems to be on studying and finding beast that people think are myths, but Beast Hunters also work to study known beasts, deal with human and beast conflict, and work to protect them.”

From the corner of his eye he could see the boy’s eyes widened at the idea. Even so though it quickly faded and he was back to staring at his lap. Morel frowned for a second—he would have sworn that would have worked but then he glanced out at the pack of animals and realization hit him.

“Are these yours?”

The boy shook his head. “No… I just take care of them.”

Morel hummed. “And you don’t want to leave them.”

“I…I _can’t_. People will _hurt_ them and they’ll _starve._ ”

Ah, so that _was_ the problem.

“How about this,” Morel suggested opening a second pack of jerky and handing it to the boy to share. “If I can assure you that I’ll get these guys to a good no-kill shelter—or sanctuary for your fox friend— would that help you decide?”

The boy stared up at him—for once free of terror, just wonder.

 

“Again Morel?” an amused Knov asked over the phone.

“Shut up.”

**Author's Note:**

> And there you have it--the next part of the series will finally show how Knuckle and Shoot first meet, and a lot more on how they acted as children. And is also not a oneshot. So yay!


End file.
